The Commander was sent on a mission to destroy a sentient computer, only for the technology in her suit to get taken over. She fought through the hallucinations, destroyed the computer’s avatar, and watched as reality came flooding back. She saw an autistic man, David, hooked up to a machine, and his brother, a scientist, walk in. “It all seemed so harmless,” he started. He describes using his brother to communicate to with machines. The Commander called for her crew to pick David up, but the scientist protests. She punched him in the face, telling him that she’s taking his savant brother where he will be safe from experiments. As the Commander went to release David from the machine, he did his favorite mind-clearing activity: complex square roots. “The square root of 912.04 is 30.2.” He paused, though, adding, “It all seemed so harmless.” He repeated this over and over, tears flowing, until the screen went black (Bioware).
This was taken from Science-Fiction, but it was neither from a book, nor a movie. It was from the video game Mass Effect 2 from Bioware and Electronic Arts. If you asked anyone 40 years ago if this type of story-telling in video games would be possible, chances are that they would say that it would not. There are still people who deny that video games can be more than just a method of telling stories, as well as entertainment. The stigma of having the title “video game” does more than just hinder the true objective of what the designers, writers, and concept artists behind the scenes are achieving. But, what of the emotional responses the players have from forming a bond with their character? What of the philosophy and psychology involved in making a game that, for better or for worse, stands out in the minds of both player and audience? What of the art work and scripts that go into making the game? All of these gather to form only one simple conclusion: Video games are an art form, and do contain a meaning.
As of late especially, comparisons of video game stories to those of films have been drawn heavily. Roger Ebert has gone on the record to state that giving the player the power to make a main character’s decisions harms any artistic aspect of a game (Ebert). Game reviewer and writer Anthony Burch agrees with him, using the game Heavy Rain as a reference. In Heavy Rain, the player controls four characters, all of which are chasing a serial killer (Burch). The player can make several choices that change the story of the game. According to both Mr. Ebert and Mr. Burch, the fact that the player can make these choices change the characters entirely too much for the game to be art (Ebert, Burch). Mr. Ebert also adds that the interactivity of games diminishes them as an art form, as well as the fact that more than one person creates a game, therefore creating a mixed vision based on a group analysis.
How well does this line of thinking work for the players? There are people who play games solely for entertainment, but the same could be said about people going to the movies and books. Yet, movies and books are considered art. What’s more is that a group of people work on movies, to create the director’s vision. That does not render the work of the actors, writers, grips, and countless other behind the scenes workers invalid. They are the artists that bring the movie to existence as the director is the artist who brings them together. In terms of video games, you have the publisher that publishes and releases the game that a developer makes. The developer contains the core pieces of the game: the writer(s), concept artists, designers, texture artists, actors, musicians, etc. Most of these positions are found in the credits reel for movies as well. Individually, they would be thought of as artists. Why should it be different because they are in a group?
The advancements in cinema technology go hand in hand with those of game creation. Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire was released in 2011, with a ground breaking technology that allowed players to actively judge whether a character was telling the truth or lying. The developers, Team Bondi, took this one step further by having certain characters act in an unusual manner. One such character, who is implied to be clinically insane, only tells the truth once when questioned, but acts the opposite way one would. He poses like a superhero, overly proud that he told the truth. Similar advancements are seen in movies to this day, including Pixar Entertainment’s (Bondi).
What of the choices though? In L.A. Noire, you have the choice to accuse the right or wrong person, be it intentionally or not. Those do not change the outcome of the entire game. The choices in Heavy Rain, on the other hand, do. The player can choose to have the father cut off his finger in order to get the clue to save his son, or walk out of the room (Quantic Dream). This can lead to the player getting a different ending in the game. Mr. Burch states that having the father walk out of the room is uncharacteristic of what he has done so far to save his son (Burch). From what little we know of him, he lost one son due to an accident, his second is kidnapped, and he is willing to jump through hoops to save him. But, how do we know for sure that he would cut off his finger instead of finding a different way? Ultimately, the player has known him for a small amount of time, and has been seen through the player’s eyes as more than just a person, but an extension to the player.
Even with the choices changing the ending of the game, as well as certain aspects, the core story stays the same. The same person will always be the killer, and the same scenes will play out in their order, only done differently depending on the player or play through. The character is still written to respond to these in a character specific manner, i.e. the father will see his inability to do what he can to save his son as failure, sinking him into a deep depression (Quantic Dream). In this sense, the game does not loose artistic merit as a whole, but each play through gains a different meaning.
To say that adding story changing choices to video games makes it not artistic means that the game would have to be devoid of those choices. In the case of Bioshcok, there are no blatant moral choices. The player character is guided by a voice over a radio, politely asked to grab a radio, help find his wife, and kill the creator of the underwater city of Rapture. Once the player reaches him, it is revealed that the choice was false all along, and the player was a toll to someone else’s means (2K). But, the game has another choice for the player to make that isn’t seen as changing the character.
Throughout the game, the player encounters “Little Sisters,” mutated children who are protected by monsters in wetsuits called “Big Daddies.” The player can choose to “harvest” the chemicals from the Little Sisters, leading to their deaths, or save them, at the sacrifice of the chemical (2K). These choices are to aid the player while still offering a slight moral choice. This choice changes the ending of the game, but nothing else. The difference is that in Bioshock, the character is a blank slate, whereas in Heavy Rain, they are established from the beginning. But, again, we only know what the game has shown us, not the true nature of the whole character. Ultimately, despite how established a character is in a game, the player molds them.
Bioshock as whole stands out as a philosophical argument of both politics and video games as an art form. The game is in a similar style to an Ayn Rand novel, speaking against government and religion in the form of Andrew Ryan’s utopia of Rapture (Tavinor, 91). It was meant to be a utopia for those who wish to be free of the government taking the fruit of their labor, as well as religion. Ultimately, it fell due to both the people’s need for control, and Ryan becoming what he despised the most: a dictator. These parts of the story are told within the game, via audio logs collected. In the case of Bioshock, the game is art in and of itself, not art placed into a game, because the story is told as the game.
L.A. Noire takes a different approach by having the player control Detective Cole Phelps on his cases, and showing in cut scenes why he is the over achiever that he is. Players see his cowardice in World War II, turning sympathy to betrayal (Bondi). Yet, the manipulation that is forced upon him still makes the player sympathize with him, thus making the ending even more tragic than it would be if he was just a straight shooter stereotype of a police officer. Again, the player has no choice in who the character is, nor the choices he makes, but they still form an emotional response to him.
But, what about a game where the character is a blank slate for the player to mold? In Mass Effect 2, the player can create their own individual character, or import the one they created in the first game. While certain sections of the story are prewritten, they player ultimately has choices to make throughout the game to alter the universe as well as the player-character. The player can have a romantic relationship with a team member, gain their loyalty, or have them die on the final mission. The player-character can even die in the final mission, and still win the game (Bioware). This creates not just a story that is a piece of art for an audience, but one that has an individual meaning for the player. That meaning can be one of selfless service, or one of martyrdom, or even one of betrayal. In that case, Mass Effect 2 creates a piece of storytelling not just on par with modern cinema, but a story that holds a potential individual meaning for the player that can change from player to player.
This obviously does not apply for all games, as the writers often times are telling a story in the way they want it to be told. “Winning” the game used to be a completely different concept, meaning an end to a game with a blurb that tells the player what happened to finish a story. At this time, the story was made only to motivate the player to play, i.e. save the princess. In our current generation of gaming, the story is much more than that. Characters have the essence of real people, allowing the player to form an emotional bond, not just with the main character, but with a non-playable character. Many a story has been written about the tragic death of Aerith Gainsborough in Final Fantasy VII, where players have admitted to crying at her death. Aerith’s character is both non-playable, and only in a small portion of the game, yet that much of an emotional response is now expected (Gale).
While seen as one of the most tragic deaths in gaming, Aerith’s is only skimming the surface of a larger, emotional vision in games. Games have reached a period where they can make statements on our world of the past, present, and possible future. But, they have also reached a point where they contain characters who elicit emotions, both by visually having them, and being voiced with emotions. The choices within the games create an individual meaning for the player, as well as on overall meaning for the mass audience.
A final example to point out is one an audience must see for themselves. A website contains an “experimental” game entitled Today I Die. Instead of manipulating the character per se, the player manipulates objects in the world to make words to replace the “dark” words with until the sentence changes to a positive sentence. The world changes with each word that is swapped. There are no choices, no modern graphics, and no voices to manipulate the player’s emotions; only the game and the computer. Yet, changing a sentence from a dead character to a free, living character can cause an emotional response, and leave a meaning with the player. To top it off, only one person made the game. If people are hesitant to deny that as art, why should mainstream games be any different?
Benmergui, Daniel “Today I Die” http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en
Bioshock v 1.1 2K Games 2007
Burch, Anthony. “Why Heavy Rain Proves Ebert Right” http://www.destructoid.com/why-heavy-rain-proves-ebert-right-165034.phtml. February 26, 2010
Ebert, Roger. “Video Games Can Never Be Art” http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html. April 16, 2010
Gale, Paul. “Aerith’s Death is Still the Most Significant Death in Gaming” http://paulgalenetwork.com/home/2010/12/23/aeriths-death-from-final-fantasy-vii-is-still-the-most-significant-death-in-gaming/. December 23, 2010
L.A. Noire v1.1.2406.1 Team Bondi: Rockstar Games, 2011
Mass Effect 2 V 1.02 Bioware: EA Games 2010
Tavinor, Grant. “Bioshock and the Art of Rapture” Philosophy and Literature April 2009, Vol. 33 Issue 1. p91-106 16p
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The good news is that the Brain Junkfoods are coming. I'm doing the What's Wrong With series, skipping "Sunnyville Yard Sale" for now. The reason is that I'm going to start doing Brain Junkfood videos soon, as well as Let's Plays. What's Wrong With series is going to be a little late.
